Page 372 of Mercy Written in Blood

Outside the broken Casino, people held photographs of the missing beneath cameras that were still broadcasting. They had seen enough to know they had been lied to. Not enough to know why. The silence had cracked.

Sota was dead. The Unveiled remained. What the silence had hidden was only beginning to surface.

Chapter Thirty

No Masks Left

Renji removed the blood from his hands before entering Haruki's room. There was not much — a narrow stain beneath one thumbnail, a darker line at the base of his palm where the glove had torn. Nothing compared to the depot. Nothing compared to the Casino floor. Still, he stood at the sink in the private medical suite and scrubbed until the skin reddened. Water ran clear almost immediately. He continued.

Behind him, machines spoke in measured tones. Haruki's heart. His oxygen. The slow infusion of blood and medication through transparent lines. Each sound belonged to survival. Renji did not trust any of them. He had trusted monitors before. Trusted pulses beneath his fingers. Trusted men who looked at him and promised later. The body could reverse every reassurance in less than a second.

He shut off the tap.

The room had been repaired as much as possible without moving Haruki again. The cracked panel beside the door had been replaced. Broken glass removed from the corridor. A portable generator stood outside under guard after the hospital attack had made ordinary infrastructure feel naïve. No Casino music reached this level. The building had gone quiet. Not empty. Below them, the Accord questioned prisoners whileIshida guards watched the Accord. The surviving Unveiled remained with Mina in one of the private lounges. Riku and his mother slept in rooms no official record identified. News crews waited beyond the police barriers. Sota's death had already acquired five contradictory explanations. Terrorist. Whistleblower. Cult leader. Hero. Victim. No version included all of him.

Renji understood the cruelty of that. History rarely preserved people. It preserved the uses others found for them.

He dried his hands. Haruki watched from the bed. His eyes had been open since Renji entered.

"You missed a spot," he said.

Renji looked at his hands.

"I did not."

"Then you were washing the same clean skin for several minutes."

"You should be asleep."

"I have done enough of that."

"You have not."

Haruki's face remained too pale. The bruising beneath his eyes had deepened. Bandages crossed his chest beneath the loose hospital shirt. One drain remained beneath the right side of his ribs. His left arm rested against the mattress, IV secured at the elbow. He should not have been able to walk downstairs. He should not have been able to stand on the balcony. He should not have fired accurately through pain, blood loss and medication.

Renji wanted to admire him. Instead, each memory produced anger sharp enough to conceal fear.

He moved towards the bed.

"You tore part of the abdominal repair."

Haruki glanced down.

"So Akiko has told me."

"She was restrained in her wording."

"She threatened to staple me to the mattress."

"That was restraint."

Something eased in Haruki's expression, weakening before becoming a smile.

Renji checked the monitor despite already knowing every number. Pulse ninety-eight. Oxygen ninety-six. Pressure acceptable. Temperature slightly elevated. He touched the skin beneath Haruki's jaw. Warm. Alive.

Haruki turned his head into the contact by a degree. The movement was so small Renji might once have pretended not to notice it. He withdrew his hand. Haruki's gaze followed.

"There," he said.